Jack's Christmas List

1. Cars in a box
2. A Puppet Show
3. a balloon
4. A picture of me Jack
5. mickey mouse angel
6. a pillow
7. Ironman
8. A real live rabbit and carrots for the rabbit to eat
9. A real live penguine
10. A rain shield (I have no clue what that is, but it is NOT an umbrella!!)
11. "A potato so I can eat it"

So, there you have it, though I doubt it will make your shopping any easier.

Update

Finally, it’s December. I am so glad it is no longer November! Life becomes barely manageable in November. Professors love to pile on the work in November; that’s when all the papers are due. It’s also the month of my birthday, Meredith’s birthday, the beginning of Sinterklaas and Thanksgiving. There have been times that I have wanted to blog but the thought of having to bring it up to date was just too daunting.

Here are some highlights:

I got this in the mail and it made my day week. I got a card last year too, how does he remember birthdays without facebook? How did anyone remember birthdays without facebook?

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We ate delicious food, took naps, went to the park, and then Meredith, Jack, Jenn and I piled in Mom and Dad’s king sized bed to watch a Pumpkin chunkin’ show.

Zach, Jack and I got to celebrate a night of Hanukkah with Jack’s Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. We had originally only intended to drop off Hanukkah gifts at the doorstep anonymously and run away. Jack was super excited about it and it was a great lesson on selfless giving…until we got caught! Jack and his older cousin Silas played with Nerf guns most the time and I got to hold baby Josiah. It was also strange doing something with Zach, Jack, and I together, but it was a good strange and Zach and I didn’t argue or get on each others nerves.

I finally organized my craft/FS closet and I’m working on the room as a whole. There is no before picture…it’s just too embarrassing.

I found the bookshelf at wal-mart and it fit the space perfectly. In an attempt to make it look more Elizabeth and less Wal-mart I covered the back part with wrapping paper. Choosing which paper to use was the hardest part, but it doesn’t really make a difference anyway since you can’t see it. Oh, well.

 

I found out that the hardest things about organizing my craft stuff is not getting off track. As I go through my stuff a million and a half ideas for new projects pop into my head and it takes a lot of self control to not start a new project. Sometimes I don’t have that much control and I took a break to make this:

And two of these:

And then I crocheted a scarf for Jack's bear:

It did finally get organized though and I'm so glad it did... just please don't ask me about my fabric stash.

A cold front decided to come in Thursday and it got really cold! There is an ice storm north of us and the weather channel was saying that power could be knocked out for days (in the dallas region). I guess that Picnic Katie and I were planning for Today is going to be indoors! I hope the power doesn’t get knocked out here though (although we are prepared to hunker down if necessary) The cold front did give me an excuse to make it a Wassail and Soup night (as if I needed an excuse).

I actually first heard of wassail a few weeks ago at a Relief Society function and since then I've made it more times than I'm willing to admit. 

Thursday was also pakjesavond, the last night of Sinterklaas. Jack got this Smurf mushroom and we ate kruid noten. No more putting a shoe out at night, no more singing Sinterklaas Kapoentje (and Jack finally has all the words down). Jack seems to be taking it better than I am though.

Lekker!

I decided that Jack could stay home from school yesterday because it was so cold and I just wanted to hunker down with him and have a snuggle day.

How could I resist more of this?

birthday

This was a birthday weekend. Here, have some pictures; I'm feeling lazy.

This is a cake.

 This is a card

 This is a present.

 This is a Silly String fight

 This is a Silly String clean-up photo op.

 

 This is family

 This is the craft we didn't have time for.

Candy Corn

Halloween is just not Halloween without candy corn, and this year I decided to make my own. I learned a lot from this experience:
1. Candy Corn is bad for you, really bad for you. If you had the choice to eat a handful of candy corn or a handful of fondant, eating the fondant would be the healthier choice. Yikes!
2. What store bought candy corn is trying to be. There was this ah-ha moment of "oh, so that's what they were going for, that's what it's suppose to taste like." 

I used:
This Recipe: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/2007/10/getting_handy_with_candy_corn.html

You Need:
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup non-fat milk powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
5 tablespoons salted butter*
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Red and yellow food coloring

* original recipe calls for unsalted, but I used salted at the advice of Cakespy at Seriouseats (Her recipe didn't call for additional salt though) and I'm happy with the results.

Sift Powdered Sugar, powdered milk and Salt together. Set aside. 

In a heavy bottomed pot* bring butter, granulated sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla to a boil. When you start seeing bubbles, reduce to medium heat and bring to 225-230 degrees F, (right before it reaches thread stage)** Then remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar/milk/salt mix being sure to it's fully incorporated. ***

* Recipe says to use a wide shallow pan, but that makes it harder to get an accurate temperature.
** Recipe suggested this would take 5 minutes, It did not! After about 3 I was there, but this could be due to my ignoring the side bubbles.
*** This is the worst part! It starts to getting really hard to stir after you just add the first half of powdered sugar mix, and you really can't "get in there" because it's so hot. I couldn't seem to get the right leverage because it's so hot and you have to hold the pot in place as you try and stir the stuff in. I made a second batch and instead of mixing in the pot I transferred it to the Stand mixer. It was so much easier that way.

After it cools and firms up a bit (but not too much) divide it into 3 parts. Leave one white, dye one yellow, and one orange. (or really whatever colors you fancy)

After this point my hands were constantly covered in food coloring and candy dough so I stopped taking pictures. Sorry.

Roll the dough into snakes and line them up in the color order you want. Use a rolling pin to flatten them out a bit.

 Cut out the pieces.

You're not even confined to making the traditional triangle shape.

Enjoy!

Some P.S.es

1.) This exists!

2.) Jack and I are doing trunk-or-treat at the Church tonight... and this is how his costume looks:

I gotta get on that!

Carnivals and Pumpkins

Friday

Corrie got pampered on Friday, she usually doesn't like baths so much, but with Jack by her side it wasn't so bad.

 And then I got a show! It was a sort of modern dance performance, hard to describe but I think these pictures capture the essence of it. 

           

Saturday:

Saturday we both slept in, it felt sooooo good! We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon reading and lounging. After lunch, we ran some errands. I spent forever trying to find some toasted whole hazelnuts, but they didn't have hazelnuts in any form. :( Jack did find some delicious ice cream though!

I expected that, like a lot of food in the US, the term "Italian" would be used very loosly but guess what?

That's pretty legit.

Later that evening we went to the carnival thing. It was a really good time.

Sunday

   This was actually a really good Sunday. Sundays happen to be my hardest day of the week. They usually start with me running around trying to get us ready for church and Jack not wanting to get ready. Then once we get to church my patience and creativity are put to the test as I try to keep a very energetic boy quiet and reverent during Sacrament. After Sacrament I fight with him to go to Sunbeams.

   But not this Sunday! I was on top of my ironing so I didn't have to do that on Sunday morning and Jack was fully cooperative.  Jack sat through all of Sacrament needing very few reminders and he Shared his toys with the baby behind us. I was able to actually hear both speakers! The first was about Facebook, the second about the Sabbath. I did have Jack hog-tied in the pew towards the end (no, really. you gotta do what you gotta do) but I still count that as a win. Jack went to primary without a lot of complaints and when I picked him up he had gotten a little pumpkin. Fun!

Then we carved up some big pumpkins. I love  being able to share traditions with Jack.

 We saved the seeds but at the very end the colander got knocked over and all of our seeds spilled. It's ok though, we still have two more pumpkins to carve which means more seeds to roast.

While we were carving pumpkins our home teachers stopped by and brought some candy! After that came, jack wasn't so interested in carving a pumpkin. So he ate chocolate and let me do the work. hmmm...I wonder where he got that from?

   

Meredith holds the pumpkins as I eat (chocolate) smarties.

My Griffin

Jack O'Malley's Jack O'Lantern

Happy Halloween!

            

Pizza

Geez what was that last post about? Now I'm blogging poetry?? You can't even eat that (but you can devour it) This week's recipe is for Pizza. I wanted to make a few frozen Pizza's to have on hand (except I messed it up pretty bad. I found my rythem and just kept baking the pizzas. woops.)

 I am a firm believer that everybody should have a pizza in the freezer at all times, because stuff happens and they've gotten me through more than one finals week.

It's hard to give a recipe for Pizza, because it's a lot like casserole just whatever you happen to have thrown together.

Crust (see garlic knot post)

Sauce- I used http://allrecipes.com/recipe/exquisite-pizza-sauce/.

Cheese& Toppings:

When making frozen pizza you should prebake the crust @ 500 F for about 3 minutes. Then cover it in sauce, add cheese, and the toppings of your choice and wrap it up. You can't over wrap these guys. Cling wrap, followed by foil, and in a freezer bag is my standard.

When you want to eat it preheat the oven to 425 and bake 8-12 minutes depending on the thickness.

Throw it all together. Get creative.

 The best pizza I made came from me messing around a bit. I mixed some BBQ sauce with brown sugar and used that as pizza sauce, then topped with mozerella, cheddar, red onions and coriander cilantro. It was just like BJ's BBQ chicken pizza but flat and without the chicken.

Just try to keep yourself from cooking them all at once.